166Originally this was supposed to be a oneshot, but I figured I might as well make this into a chapter fic otherwise it would've been a really long oneshot. So yeah, I'm very excited about this fic and I hope you all are too! In this, the triangle never happened but ski lodge did and the Rucas interaction in that was just them reconfirming their unofficial thing.
Chapter One
The unofficial thing going on between Lucas and Riley had been going on since the day they met back in the seventh grade. Three years later and they were still stuck in that routine. They learned from their parents that they shouldn't rush into things and take things slow until they knew the time was right. And for Lucas, that time was now. He thought three years was more than enough time to really get to know Riley, and his attraction to her kept growing since the day she fell into his lap on the subway.
The first day back from spring break during their sophomore year of high school, Lucas decided he was going to ask Riley to be his girlfriend. To make their unofficial thing, official. He arrived at school early that day, in hopes to find Riley alone at her locker. Riley had gotten into the habit of going to school early with her father ever since Maya had joined the art club and had meetings almost every day before school.
Lucas smiled when he spotted her from across the hallway. Since freshman year he hated that his locker was so far from hers due to the alphabetical order the lockers were assigned in. Their lockers were practically on opposite sides of the school. It didn't matter, though. He spent more time at her locker than his anyway. Plus, she was nice enough to let him use her locker every now and then since it was closer to some of his classes. He took a deep breath and walked over to her. Her head was shoved into her locker, and she didn't sense him coming.
"Hi, Ri," Lucas greeted. After being denied of using 'Riles' as a nickname for Riley by Maya, Lucas had decided to come up with his own nickname for the brunette. Lucas couldn't help but smirk to himself in satisfaction whenever Maya shuddered at the nickname.
The sudden voice startled Riley and she instinctively jerked her head up, banging her head onto the shelf in her locker. Riley then quickly moved her head out of the locker and rubbed her head.
"Ow," Riley said, her hand still gripping her head. She shook her head amusingly and muttered, "Once a klutz, always a klutz." She died of embarrassment on the inside, because somehow things like this only happened when Lucas was around. He didn't mind, though, he thought her clumsiness was absolutely charming.
Lucas couldn't help but to silently chuckle at how adorable she was even with a slowly appearing bump on her head. "Are you okay?"
Riley waved him off as her cheeks flushed red, "I'm fine. Just a little bump."
"Are you sure?" Lucas asked. He pointed in the direction behind him with his thumb. "I could get you some ice or something, bring you to the nurse's office."
"That's alright," Riley assured the green eyed boy. She shut her locker and focused her attention on the cute boy standing in front of her. "So how was your spring break, Lucas?" She grinned from ear to ear, evidently happy to finally see him again. Over the spring break, Lucas's parents insisted they spend the week in Austin to visit family since they didn't end up going over the holidays.
"Truthfully, boring," Lucas replied with a fake yawn. He reached for the top of Riley's head, making sure that the bump on her head didn't look suspicious. Riley didn't mind the gesture, she liked his protective and caring nature. Lucas scrunched his face. "I love Texas but I think I love New York a little bit more."
"Hm, I wonder why that is," Riley teased and nudged him, eyes wide.
Lucas rolled his eyes and smirked. They were both fully aware of their feelings for each other. They've talked about it on multiple occasions, and in those conversations, they also talked about how they weren't ready to be official yet. They weren't so sure why they feared labelling each other. Maybe it was because they were both scared of change, and putting a label on whatever relationship they had wasn't necessarily going to be a good thing.
"You are the best thing that's ever happened to me here," Lucas promised, pinching the brunette's cheeks.
Riley scrunched her face in disgust and swatted his hand away from her face, "Oh, really? What about your childhood friend Zay moving here?"
"It's a close second," Lucas shrugged. He knew Zay would hate him if he heard that, but it didn't matter. Zay was also aware that Riley was the reason why Lucas quickly adjusted and fell in love with New York—and her.
"Mind if I tell Zay that?" Riley smirked.
Lucas quickly shook his head, "Of course I mind!" Although Zay had become close friends with Riley over the years, he didn't exactly approve of her and his best friend having feelings for each other. Neither Riley or Lucas knew why. And Lucas didn't care enough to know, Zay's opinions wouldn't change the way Lucas felt about Riley.
Riley chuckled at Lucas's response. She expected that from him. She knew that even though she was an important part of his life now, Zay was still going to be his priority in one way or another. It was the same for her with Maya.
"How was your break? Did you guys do anything?"
"We went out a couple of times," Riley replied. "Wasn't the same though with you gone. It's always been the clique six."
"Six?" Lucas said, raising an eyebrow. "You mean three. It was always you, Maya, and Farkle. Then I came along, Smackle, then Zay."
"Our circle of friends never felt complete with just the three of us," Riley admitted. "We all keep each other balanced, which was hard when it was just me, Maya, and Farkle."
"Well, we're not very balanced right now, are we?" Lucas pointed out.
"No," Riley shook her head sadly. "Not ever since Farkle and Smackle broke up."
"It's been rough on all of us," Lucas agreed.
"It was hard trying to get everyone together over the break," Riley said. "Farkle and Smackle didn't want to be near each other. They said they'd only come with us if they didn't have to interact with each other. So we just ended up going to the movies a lot of the time."
"At least that's progress," Lucas commented. "Remember when we literally had to split the group in order to hang out with each of them?"
"That was horrible," Riley said. "I spent most of the time with Farkle because Smackle wanted to spend time with you."
"Don't be jealous now," Lucas nudged her. Riley rolled her eyes with an amused smile on her face. "You know she's harmless. Her heart belongs to Farkle."
"I don't think either of them know that," Riley retorted. "They've been so stubborn. And I have a feeling we're going to have to split up at lunch again. The movies didn't exactly go so well."
"They'll come around," Lucas said. He noticed the sudden scheming look on her face. "Don't get involved, Ri, let them figure it out."
"Yeah, yeah," Riley waved him off. She raised her eyebrow, folded her arms and leaned against her locker. "So are you going to tell me why you're at school so early?" Lucas was never the one to be early, especially since he had to wait for Zay all the time, and Zay took forever to get ready in the morning.
"What? I can't be at school early without having a reason?" Lucas put a hand on his chest, playfully offended.
"You want something," Riley assumed. She narrowed her eyes and poked his chest. "You're never early."
"Well, I actually wanted to talk to you about something," Lucas sheepishly admitted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He rocked himself on the balls of his feet, avoiding her gaze. "Plus you know I like spending time with you. It's kinda hard to do that with everyone else here."
Riley raised both her eyebrows, entertained. She and Lucas spent a lot of time together, but their solo hang outs were always planned. She concluded that something was up. Lucas was never one to be so spontaneous. But she couldn't say she didn't like this side of him.
"What did you have to talk to me about that's so important that you can't bring it up in front of our friends?" Riley challenged, holding his head between her hands, forcing him to stare into her chocolate brown eyes.
"I don't really think it's their business to know," Lucas replied, taking a step closer to her, putting his hands on her arms to peel them off his face. Riley's breath hitched when she tilted her head up to get a better look at the boy standing dangerously close. If she had no self-control she swore she would've pressed her lips onto his right then and there. "Besides, it's an important talk. You know, the ones that are only between me and you?"
"Huh," Riley breathed. A sheepish smile plastered her face. "Must be really important then."
"Yeah, it is," Lucas nodded. He took her hands into his. He took a deep breath before he asked, "Riley, will you be my girlfriend?" He stared down at her with hopeful eyes. His heart started to beat faster and he couldn't quite understand what he was feeling. Maybe it was the 'clippity clop' feeling that Maya had described whenever she teased him about his feelings for Riley. Nonetheless, the only thing he knew was that from the very beginning, he had every intention of getting Riley Matthews to be his girlfriend.
"What?" Riley blinked her eyes, stunned. She hadn't expected that from Lucas at all. "Girlfriend?"
"Yeah…" Lucas's voice trailed off. He couldn't believe he actually asked her. He honestly didn't think he could go through with it, not when she's so pretty and that whenever they talk about their feelings for each other, his knees go weak and he barely knew what to say.
"We've had an unofficial thing for years," Riley reminded him.
Lucas chuckled softly and nodded, "I know. That's why I wanna move things along."
"By asking me to be your girlfriend?" Riley titled her head to the side.
Lucas nodded.
"I'd love to…" Riley's voice trailed off. Lucas released the breath he didn't realize he was holding. "But I need to ask you something first." Lucas gestured for her to continue, eager for her response. "Are you worth it?"
"Yes," Lucas quickly answered. He didn't need another second to think about his answer. Of course he thought he was worthy of Riley Matthews. He had dreamt about the two of them a lot. And in each one of his dreams he treated her like the princess she's always wanted to be. He knew he deserved to be her boyfriend.
"Then prove it," Riley retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. She had grown tired of waiting for this moment. It took him three years to finally make things official, and Riley was not amused. She wanted him to work for it, in exchange for all the time Riley waited. Sure, they came to a mutual agreement in the past to take things slow, but even then, Riley was still hopeful he would ask her to be his girlfriend a lot sooner than he actually did.
Lucas was taken aback by Riley's response. He took a few seconds to process what she just said. He never thought that in a million years that he'd have to prove his feelings for her. It was obvious that he liked her, everyone at school knew it, his parents knew it, and her parents did, too. He didn't think that she would make him prove it. In fact, he expected Riley to be jumping up and down, squealing with joy. But he knew better than to underestimate the brunette.
"How?" he finally responded, furrowing his brows and taking a step back.
Riley pulled out a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her high waisted jeans. She handed it to him with a straight face. Lucas unfolded it and quickly scanned it. It was a to do list. Lucas was confused as to how it had anything to do with him.
"It's a to do list that you have to complete," Riley said when she realized that Lucas didn't understand what the piece of paper in his hand meant.
"You've really thought this through, haven't you?" Lucas raised a brow. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, especially with certain things he saw on the list, but he knew it would be worth it once he finally had Riley swooning in his arms.
"Very thoroughly," Riley nodded. "Especially in the last week." Riley was a dreamer. Everyone knew it. But at the same time, she was a realist. But not everybody knew that. Early on in their unofficial courtship, Riley knew she wanted Lucas to work for her when the time finally came for him to really ask her out. She thought it was very unrealistic that Lucas thought she would be waiting for him and would jump into his arms the moment he knew he was ready to take things to the next level. Riley, on the other hand, knew she was ready the moment she felt his jealousy firsthand when Lucas thought she wanted to go to the eighth grade semi-formal with Charlie Gardner instead of him. "I want you to complete every item on this list. Then, I'll consider being your girlfriend."
"Consider?" Lucas's eyes grew wide. He looked again at the piece of paper in his hand. "There's like a thousand things on this list. When I complete it, you have to be my girlfriend."
"Don't be silly, there's only like ten things on it. I feel like if I added more, you wouldn't complete it," Riley smirked in amusement, unfazed by Lucas's reaction. "And I don't have to do anything, Lucas. You're the first boy I've ever liked, and you know that. I just want to know that I'm not wasting my time on you and that I'm not going to get hurt."
"I would never hurt you, Riles," Lucas promised softly.
"Yeah, I know that," Riley said as she tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked down and gulped. Then she looked up to meet his emerald eyes again. Oh, she could stare into his eyes forever. "But sometimes actions speak louder than words."
"If this is what it takes to prove that I deserve you, then I'll do it," Lucas said, holding the paper up, accepting the challenge. If completing this list is what would make her officially his, what would make her happy, then of course he was going to take the challenge. He was certain he would have her as his girlfriend in the next couple of days.
Riley smiled dreamily. She's glad he's willing to work for her.
"Any questions?" Riley asked as she watched Lucas read through the paper again.
"A couple," Lucas replied, his eyes still on the paper that determined his future with the brunette. "Do I have to do all of this in order? And is there a time limit?"
"Any order you want, no time limit," Riley instructed. "Take as long as you need. I waited three years. I can wait a couple more weeks."
"Weeks?" Lucas repeated. "Ri, I can do this in a couple of days."
"Ha," Riley snorted. "That's cute. We'll see."
Confusion took over Lucas's features. Did she not believe that he could do it in a short amount of time? No, of course she did. She believed in him. But Lucas knew if Riley had been thinking about it for a while, then there was no way she was going to make it easy for him.
"One more thing," Riley raised her index finger. "Our friends can't know. I don't want them helping you. You're on your own." Riley walked away before Lucas had the chance to respond, his face dropping as she does so. He looked over the paper once more.
"Riley Matthews, you are so worth it," he said to himself. He was going to complete every single task on that list. Even if it was the last thing he did.
Don't worry, there will be tons of Rucas moments as Lucas completes the list to win her heart. So what do you guys think so far? I'm looking forward to hearing from you!